Topic: patients

Some GP practices in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire will start offering evening and weekend appointments, the commissioning body has announced.

NHS Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) will offer these extra appointments from 31 March in a bid to help reduce pressures on both general practices and hospital emergency departments, while giving patients a convenient choice to access GP appointments out-of-hours.

Satisfaction with GP services is at the lowest point since records began, a survey of almost 4,000 people has revealed.

Satisfaction with general practice among the 3,988 people surveyed by research company NatCen Social Research fell to 65% in 2017, marking a 7% point drop on the previous year and the biggest one-year change since the survey began in 1983.

A GP practice has closed after failing to secure a new contract with a provider to run the service, the local CCG has said.

NHS Newcastle Gateshead Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) announced at a meeting on 30 January that it had not managed to find a new provider for the service and was therefore forced to close the practice.

Practices should adopt a few changes to create an ‘accepting atmosphere’ and improve health outcomes in LGBT patients, a study published today in the British Journal of General Practice has suggested.

In their study, researchers said that sometimes only inexpensive changes are needed, such as ‘displaying signs or symbols that convey an accepting atmosphere, such as a rainbow symbol or the Human Rights Campaign logo’.

The provision of care and rota gaps are getting worse, a British Medical Association (BMA) survey of 900 doctors from different specialities in the NHS has found.

Around 71% of doctors had rota gaps in their department, whereas 47% of GP practices reported vacancies that in 73% of the cases remained uncovered for six months or more.

Doctors also lamented that the delivery of care had deteriorated in different areas over the last year, with 86% them believing that the NHS financial sustainability had worsen and 72% saying the same of mental health provision.

GP practices in England saw a 150% increase in patients’ attendance for influenza-like-symptoms (ILI) since the beginning of 2018, latest figures published by the Royal College of GPs' Research and Surveillance Centre (RSC) have shown.

During the second week of January (8-14 January), the RSC registered an increase more than 9,000 (42%) extra patients presenting to GP practices with flu-related symptoms in comparison with the previous week, for a total of around 31,300 patients.

Patients can download a new free app which informs them if their local NHS services are experiencing delays.

NHSquicker provides people in Devon and Cornwall with access to up-to-date waiting times for A&Es and minor injury units. It also calculates how long it takes patients to reach a treatment centre, based on their geolocation.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Hylton Medical Group in Sunderland as ‘good’, after an inspection they carried out in September.

The practice was rated ‘inadequate’ twice, following two CQC inspections in April 2015 and February 2017. However, following an inspection by the CQC in September, the practice was rated ‘good overall’.